The Way I Am
by Duck Life
Summary: "What other part of myself do I have to lose next?" She looked at Ashley like he had an answer, but he really didn't. Multichap. Please R&R! Warning: Multiple Character Deaths. Title from the Ingrid Michaelson song. Spoilers for Knockout and Pretty Dead.
1. Be Ok

_Alexis nuzzled just a bit closer to Ashley after her dad walked out of the room (still a bit shocked from her Stanford announcement.) Ashley smiled and pulled her just a bit closer to him. "You'd really give up Stanford for me?" she said, still surprised by this fact. "A great school, an amazing opportunity- and you'd give it all up to be with me?"_

"_Alexis," he said, "as long as I'm with you, it doesn't feel like I'm giving up anything." He kissed her and, down-to-earth girl that she was, she could have sworn she saw a long future unwrapping between the two of them. _

**SEVEN YEARS LATER**

Knockknockknock.

Altaira Rodgers sat in the middle of her bed, trying to stretch the last remnants of an ancient bottle of nail polish enough for a manicure. She reminded herself to buy more the next time she was out- whenever that was. Since her father's death she hadn't felt safe outside. Altaira heard the knocking on her door, but made no move to answer it.

Knockknockknockknockknock.

Insistence- more than she'd expect from a neighbor wanting to borrow a sugar. She didn't expect it to be someone intending to harm her, either- he would have just broken down the door at this point. Still, life had taught her never to take anything for granted, so she grabbed for her Glock 17 before she went to answer the door, blowing at her nails as she did so.

She glanced through the peephole. Then, groaning internally, she unlocked the door and opened it without undoing the deadbolt. "Go away, Ashley," she said over the chain. She tried to shut the door, but he'd stuck his foot in it.

"Alexis-" Her eyes popped open wide. "_Alta_, will you please just let me talk to you?"

"It's too risky," she said, but her voice didn't sound convincing. Despite all the walls she'd put up, all the lengths she'd took to push him away from her, she really did want to talk to him. "Why are you even here?"

"Because I care about you," he said. "And I know you care about me, otherwise we'd still be together." She bit her lip, fighting the sudden wave of emotions.

"Fine," she whispered, glancing nervously at the hall behind him before unbolting the door and letting him in. "You can come in, just-"

"Stay away from the windows," he completed her sentence. "I remember." He locked and bolted the door behind him and followed her to her bedroom, the place she felt safest when in her apartment because it was windowless and only had one entryway. "Your hair looks nice," he said once they were seated cross-legged across from each other on the bed.

"Yeah, well," she said, tugging on a strand of it, "I used to always want to go brunette." There was an unspoken word there- _before_. It was a childhood dream, a thing she'd put behind her until the brown hair became a necessity, before she'd felt the need to hide her red hair, any link to her true identity. "How did you find me?"

"I knew your new name," he said. "And I knew roughly where you would be."

"It's too obvious," she sighed. "You shouldn't have been able to track me down. I knew Rodgers was a bad idea." For the first time since he'd knocked on her door she was beginning to lose control of her cool. "I'll have to change it," she said, tears threatening to spill over onto her cheeks. "My hair, my name… what other part of myself do I have to lose next?"

She looked at Ashley like he had an answer, but he really didn't. All he could do was try to keep her in his arms long enough to calm her down. After a few moments, she'd relaxed enough to speak again. She sniffed and brushed her dark hair away from her face. "You heard about my mom, didn't you?" she said. "That's why you came."

"Yeah," he said, trying to tread carefully. "I'm so sorry."

"Just got the call last night," she said. "I'm officially an orphan." It was the easy, matter-of-fact way Alexis said it that broke his heart even more than the crying. That she seemed so acceptant of the awful turn her life had taken was truly upsetting. "I'm next," she sighed, not looking at him. She was looking down at her arms, at herself, as if she wanted the image of her own body locked into her memory before a bullet was shot through it. "I know I am."

"No." He said it like he was defying God. "You're going to be okay."

"Ash," she said, meeting his eyes. If he was going to come all this way to see her, she wanted him to understand one thing very clearly, a point she'd tried to make to him the last time she'd seen him. "I won't be okay. I'm not okay, really, I haven't been okay, not since Detective Beckett…" She didn't want to complete the sentence, and she didn't need to. She was talking about the shooting at Captain Montgomery's funeral, the beginning of the end. The point at which one tragedy escalated to two, then three, then dozens.

"I won't let that happen to you," he said, beginning to tear up as well. "It won't happen to you. The police, the feds… they're on this guy, they're going to catch him. They're going to stop him."

"No, Ash," she said with a bitter smile that was really more of a grimace. "Don't you get it? Those same people who keep saying they're going to catch this guy, they _are _'the guy'. I know it's someone high up, and he's pulling the strings." It was the same old conspiracy theory she recited to herself every time the government told her they would arrest the man responsible for her dad's death, and her grandmother's, but she knew it was true.

"Hell, I should be dead right now," she said, scratching a chip of nail polish off of her gun. "Only reason I'm not is because I was lucky, and there were other people willing to die for me. So many people, Ashley," she said, looking up at him. "Anyone who ever came in contact with Detective Beckett, anyone who might have _any _reason to want this monster taken down. So many people." She used to say their names every night before she went to sleep, but as the casualties increased she found herself staying up later and later.

"I'll keep you safe," he promised, trying to pull her in closer to him. She batted his arm away, shaking her head.

"I don't need safe," said Alexis. "I'm as safe as I could be. I don't look like myself, I've got a different name, I never interact with anybody, I _stay away from the windows_." She wiped furiously at her eyes as she started to cry again. "I just want this to be over."

It was like having a disease, she thought. A terminal disease that there was no cure for- eventually she'd just be killed just like everyone else. No point in creating relationships if they'd end just as quickly, no point in trying to keep up old relationships. It would be better for everyone concerned if she just phased them all out so they wouldn't have to be there when she died- or worse, so they wouldn't be there to take a bullet. She was the Angel of Death.

"Ugh," she groaned, realizing something. "I'm only twenty-four and I'm a spinster. I can't ever get married." It seemed like a trivial thing, and yet it still bothered her.

"You want to get married?" asked Ashley. "We can do that tomorrow."

"No," she said.

"I'm serious," he continued. "I will buy you the most extravagant dress you want, and we can go have an amazing short-notice wedding. And then we can dance all night long." It was a fantasy, and rationally she knew that, but it didn't keep her stomach from lifting in hope. She had always imagined herself marrying Ashley.

"I couldn't put you through that," Alexis argued. "You'd be right in the line of fire-"

"Hey, I met Detective Beckett, too," he reminded her. "I'm in just as much danger as you are."

"Your family," she started, thinking of the way she'd had to cut herself off from relatives and friends. "I can't let you give all that up."

"Alexis," he said, repeating the words he'd said to her years ago, "as long as I'm with you, it doesn't feel like I'm giving up anything."

There were a thousand and one reasons to force him out the door right then, most of them concerning his own safety. But he was right- he was in danger too. And life was short- hers especially so. If she was destined to be assassinated early on, she might as well enjoy life up to that point. "Okay," she said. "Okay." She didn't know quite what she was agreeing to- getting married, allowing him back into her life, or just deciding to try to be happy.

"I love you," he said. It was this that brought the tears back.

"I love you, too," she said. It was a relief to be this open, to let her emotions instead of her survival instincts make her decisions for once. He pulled her in close, and she let him. Against his chest, she saw their future unfolding once again. It was short, and filled with worry, but he was there, by her side, throughout all of it. As long as she had someone by her side, she realized, she'd be able to get through everything else.


	2. Starting Now

**A/N: Well, after a persuasive review left by unchartedcities, I've decided to extend this into a multichap story. Enjoy!**

The Chicago streets were busy in the early morning as Ashley and Alexis navigated through them. After years of experience, Alexis knew to keep her head down, not to interact with others, and to move fast. Ashley was less experienced, but she was able to steer him away from potentially dangerous situations. They were on their way to City Hall to be married- first a bridal gown shop, though. He'd managed to persuade her to risk being out later than necessary and spending a large amount of money for a dress.

"It's only proper," he'd said to her last night. "You can't have a dream wedding without a dream dress."

To which she'd responded, "In what universe is this a dream wedding? It's at City Hall and we have to make it fast and watch out for a sniper the whole time."

He kept an arm around her shoulders as they made their way to the dress store, prepared to pull her behind him to keep her safe if shooting started, or to grab her and run. "You think I should change my name too?" he asked.

"If you want," she shrugged, not seeing the necessity. She'd changed her name because she was a blood relative of Richard Castle's. Ashley had no reason like that to change his name. "You could get something that's not a girl's name." He laughed and shoved her playfully.

Even with the worry and panic she lived with every day, Alexis still retained the ability to be picky when it came to her wedding dress. Her first was a bit over-the-top, she thought, too many ruffles. The second was sleeveless, and she didn't care for that. The third was plainer in comparison to the other two, but elegant- a V-neck, thin straps, and a long skirt that flowed around her feet.

"I like it," said Ashley. He'd said the exact same thing about the other two.

"Yeah," she said, sounding uncertain. "You know, you're not even supposed to be in here," she added, turning so she could see the dress at a different angle in the dressing room's three-paneled mirror. "It's bad luck to see the dress before the wedding."

"I'm not leaving you alone," he said. "Besides, I think we've had all the bad luck we can have." What he said wasn't strictly true- when everyone you'd ever known was assassinated by the same person, you began to think that it wasn't just bad luck behind it.

"You know," she said, spinning around, "I think I actually kind of liked the ruff-"

_Crack_.

The mirror shattered, shards of glass exploding out of it. The bullet had hit right in the middle of Alexis' reflection. Alexis tucked and rolled off of the podium, staying low to the ground as she grabbed for Ashley and for her purse. There was no time to change out of the wedding dress. Sticking low to the ground, they crawled out the back door as gunfire rained down and ripped apart all of the wedding dresses.

Hiking up the stolen dress, Alexis ran barefoot down the alley behind the bridal shop, Ashley in tow. There was no time to stop- who knew how many snipers were hiding up in the surrounding buildings? Her naked feet slammed against the concrete, scraping against the stray debris. Each step echoed her thumping heart beat.

They took cover behind a short stone wall in front of the Willis Tower and Alexis started pulling her handgun out of her purse. "I think we're safe here," panted Ashley.

"Right," she said, rolling her eyes. "Directly in front of the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, that's how to avoid snipers." She said it with an ease that chilled him, like she'd outrun bullets plenty of times in her life- which, he realized, she probably had. Guilt clutched his stomach, and he felt bad about being out of contact with her for such a long time. "What we need to do," she said, glancing over the wall to see a row of taxis lined up at the curb, "is get out of town."

"And go where?" he asked, eyes widening as he watched her handling the Glock 17.

"I'm thinking somewhere much more rural," she said. "A big city like this was a mistake. What do you think about Minnesota?"

"We can't take a _taxi _to Minnesota," Ashley reminded her as he scoped the buildings surrounding them, wondering when or if the next shot was going to come.

"Don't be silly," she said, grabbing his arm and pulling him out from behind the wall. Eyes roving the sky above them, Alexis pulled Ashley into the nearest taxi and tossed a wad of bills at the driver. "Millenium Park," she said, slouching down beneath the window. "There's a car rental service there," she said in response to Ashley's questioning look.

One rather hectic and worrisome cab ride later, Ashley and Alexis were standing in line at the Enterprise Rent-A-Car service. "Here," said Alexis, handing him a stack of money. "I need you to rent the car, I'm not old enough." The fact that she was outrunning an assassin and yet not qualified to rent a car was somehow hilarious- in a sort of sick way.

"Right," he said, thumbing through the bills she had handed him. "Jeez, Lex, how much do you have?"

"Oh, lots of inheritance," she sighed, stretching out her arms. Ashley frowned and patted her shoulder, trying to make up for being so tactless. She didn't seem too phased by it, and he was, not for the first time, amazed by her strength.

"Hi," said Ashley when they'd reached the front counter. "We'd like to rent a car."

"How long?" asked the woman behind the counter.

"Indefinitely?" He wasn't quite sure. He thought about asking if there was an extra charge for returning the car full of bullet holes. She ran off a list of price ranges and he slid the money across the counter in exchange for the keys to a Ford Focus.

Alexis grabbed his arm and pulled him away the second he was done exchanging information with the woman. "We have to hurry," she reminded him, as if he'd forgotten that they were running for their lives from people intent on killing them. They got several odd looks as they walked out, and he realized that she was still barefoot and in a stolen wedding dress.

"Maybe you should change soon," he suggested. She shrugged as they walked out to the car.

"I'll do that when we're not running away from a sniper." He unlocked the car door and she stepped in, brushing herself off as they steered out of the parking lot. Her feet were scraped and bloody, the dress was torn and covered in spots of dirt, and her hair was tousled from holding her head beneath the cab window. "Not exactly how I pictured my wedding day," she admitted.

He laughed. "Hey, it's not a wedding day unless we get married. Trust me, when it's really here it'll go a lot smoother."

"Doubt it," she said, turning up the radio. Adele's "Rolling in the Deep" was playing- perfect escaping-a-killer music. "We should probably just start expecting this to happen every day. That way we won't be caught by surprise." Ashley nodded but said nothing, and they drove on north.


	3. Far Away

They drove on into the night, only stopping when they needed gas, and once to buy Alexis a change of clothes, plus shoes. As they'd left Chicago Ashley had tried to talk her into stopping at her apartment to collect all of her worldly possessions, but she wouldn't have it.

"Everything I need is in here," she'd said, tapping the purse that sat in her lap. "Phone, money, gum, Swiss Army pocketknife, gun."

"The average Girl Scout's survival pack," he'd joked.

They pulled into the Hastings AmericInn just past midnight and paid for a room with part of Alexis' seemingly bottomless collection of cash. "You two here for your honeymoon?" asked the cheery old woman behind the counter. Ashley was confused, but Alexis understood- she'd bought new clothes but still hadn't changed out of the wedding dress.

"Something like that," she said with a smile. She took the room key off of the counter, took Ash's hand, and walked away.

The AmericInn was a one-story hotel made up of several tiny houses stitched together- more of a motel than a hotel. Each room opened to the outside through two large sliding glass doors. Not the safest place, they were both aware, but it was late and they were tired. Alexis shuttered all of the windows in their room while Ashley loaded the fridge and kitchen area with the food that Alexis had bought while he'd filled the Focus with gas at their last stop.

Their rations were the sort of thing you'd expect to find at a convenience store- potato chips, Twizzlers, bottled water, Twinkies. Not exactly major food staples, but they would do until Alexis deemed it safe enough to go out and buy canned goods.

Alexis stepped into the cramped bathroom with the Old Navy bag containing her new clothes and stripped out of the wedding dress. She hung the dress over the shower curtain rod and examined it for damage- some small tears at the bottom, dirt stains midway on the skirt from when she'd been kneeling in front of the Willis Tower. It smelled like cigarette smoke from the rental car.

She decided to keep it, and dry clean it if they got a chance. She could wear it when- if- she and Ashley ever did get married. Satisfied with her decision, she quickly pulled on the denim jeans and green T-shirt she'd bought. There was also a pair of black Crocs in the bag- not the best running shoes, but they would do until she could find a good pair of sneakers. She splashed some water on her face, gargled with tap water, ran her fingers through her hair, and then returned to the motel room.

Setting the Crocs down in front of the door, she turned to see that Ashley had collapsed on top of the bedspread, exhausted from the chase and the drive. His sleeping face looked younger, and she was reminded of their earlier days, back before it became open season for anyone who'd ever known Kate Beckett.

Realizing she was exhausted herself, Alexis sat down on the opposite side of the bed, ready to lie down and go to sleep. She'd jostled the bed when she sat down, though, and the movement woke Ashley from his light slumber. "Sorry," whispered Alexis.

"'S okay," he muttered, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. "I didn't mean to fall asleep."

"You should," she said. "Get some sleep, I mean." She pulled the sheets over herself and flattened against the bed, like she was setting an example. The pillow was too flat.

"No," said Ashley as she attempted to fluff up her pillow, "I'm going to stay up and keep watch."

"You don't need to do that," said Alexis, trying to tug him down back onto the bed. "Just go to sleep." When he shook his head, she just shrugged and rolled over on her side, squeezing her eyes shut and trying to calm her breathing. She hadn't realized it until know, but her heart was still pounding. Given the kind of fast-paced life she had now, she wouldn't be surprised if it became just an anatomical anomaly she'd have to put up with.

In a hypocritical contradiction of what she'd said to Ashley, Alexis found that she couldn't get to sleep, try as she did. Her mind was racing, her pulse was raging. Every fiber of her being was locked in some kind of frenzied sprint that carried her further and further away from sleep. "Damn adrenaline," she muttered, sitting up beside Ashley.

"Yeah, that'll get you," he replied, but she could tell that his mind was elsewhere. She leaned against his shoulder, relishing in the fact that she finally had the company she'd been denying for years. "What if they were following me?"

"What?" said Alexis.

"The sniper," he said. "He didn't find you until the day after I did. What if I'm the one who led them to you?" She shook her head, but he ignored her. "No, listen- I mean, how long had you been living in Chicago without an attack before I showed up?"

"A week or two," she said.

"Oh." More guilt. She'd been roaming the country, searching anywhere for a tiny nook to hide in, and he hadn't been there for her. "Alexis, I'm sorry-"

"Stop that," she said, putting a hand on his arm. "I'm okay, really. And you're here now." She wasn't completely sure if when she said "and", she really meant "because." For some reason, this both bothered and intrigued her. Pondering this, she finally drifted off to sleep.


	4. Keep Breathing

When Ashley woke up, he didn't trust himself to get out of bed immediately. He didn't even open his eyes. First, he ran over everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours and verified that his memories were in fact reality, and not some nightmare he'd had over the night. He let all that had transpired ruminate in his head for a while until he was able to accept it once again (evidently, acceptance had slipped away over the night).

Eventually, he came to the conclusion that he was ready to face this new day. He opened his eyes and rolled over. No one was there on the other side of the bed- Alexis was gone.

* * *

><p>"Altaira!" He knew not to yell her real name, knew that she would answer to her legal name even if it weren't her given one. Ashley had searched the hotel room upon realizing that she was not in the bed, but to no avail. At this point he'd run outside their motel room. Their car was there, but Alexis was nowhere to be seen.<p>

"Over here!" came the call from behind the building. Sighing with relief, he rounded the room to see her standing beside a thin strip of garden at the back of the motel. She was holding up her Swiss Army knife and focusing on a strip of her hair.

"Hey," he said, walking up to her. "What are you doing?" She chopped off a bit of her hair and dropped it into a small hole she'd toed into the dirt.

"Mom's funeral," she said simply, kneeling down to cover up her makeshift grave. "Obviously I can't go to the real one, so…" She straightened up and bent her head, lips moving soundlessly as if she were saying her last goodbyes. Ashley put an arm around her, shaken by how adaptable she was after all that had happened.

"Do you want me to pray?" he asked her softly. She shook her head. A teardrop fell into the dirt and stained the spot where she'd buried the lock of her hair.

"That's okay," she murmured, letting him pull her into a hug. They remained like that for just over a minute, holding each other and being quiet in a long moment of silence to honor Meredith. It wasn't the first time she'd done this same sort of memorial service. Ever since Gram was shot at her father's funeral, Alexis hadn't felt safe attending the things.

"Sorry for leaving," she said as they walked back to the motel room. "I wasn't going to be gone for long, I didn't think you'd wake up."

"Don't worry about it," he said, unsure as to how he should be acting around her. She'd just, in a way, attended her mother's funeral and now she seemed ready to plow on ahead. It was something new about her that he was having trouble getting used to. The Alexis he'd known hadn't been so ready to move on after a tragedy, had always been caught up with whatever had happened days after receiving the news.

There was only one solution, he realized- this Altaira was a different person than the Alexis he'd known. The chase and the unending tragedy had hardened her, changed her, and caused her to evolve into this cool, calm, badass of an escape artist. It was unnerving, and he wished that he could erase all that had happened and bring back the girl he'd known as a teenager.

"So," said Alexis once they were back in the room, after checking to make sure the windows were covered, "we need a plan."

"Plans are good," he agreed, sitting down at the one table. She ripped open a bag of Twizzlers and popped the end of one in her mouth, where it dangled like a lizard's tongue.

"This place is okay," she said, patting the wall, "but we'll have to leave soon."

"What, you think they followed us?" he asked, surprised. A Chicago apartment to a Minnesota motel seemed like a long jump, and no one had been following them on the drive up- they'd kept checking. It seemed like a safe enough place to him, but obviously she didn't agree.

"It doesn't matter, they'll track us here eventually," she explained, "and I'd like to be somewhere far, far away when that happens." This was the reason she was still alive- she kept on the move, like a shark in the water. Never pausing, never resting, every home a temporary one. "I should've left Chicago days earlier, it was dumb to stay there so long." She got a twitchy feeling when she'd been in one place for too long, and it had been working at her days before Ashley showed up.

"You want to talk about where to next?" he guessed. She bit her lip and glanced around the room, then pulled back a chair and sat at the table across from him.

_No_, she wrote using the hotel stationary, _we probably shouldn't say it out loud. _

Ashley's brow furrowed. He took the pad of paper and the pen and wrote _Bugs?_ Beneath what she'd written. Alexis nodded.

_Maybe. We can't be too safe_, she wrote. _I was thinking, close as we are, we should go to Canada. Leave the country._

He nodded and wrote _When?_

_Couple days_, she replied. _We can stock up on food and get out of here. _

"'Kay," said Ashley. The silence was buzzing in his ears, and he didn't like it. Now that they were done with proper nouns and times, he figured it was safe to speak out loud. "You're really good at this," he observed, looking at her. "All the cloak-and-dagger, running in the night."

"Seven years of practice," she shrugged, tearing up the first few sheets of the pad so that no one would be able to make out what they'd discussed. "You'll catch on quick enough," she assured him.

"Yeah," he said with sarcasm, doubting it.

"Well, you'll catch on eventually," she amended with a smile. "But it's not like you're totally hopeless. You saved my life."

"At what point in all the running and screaming did I save your life?" laughed Ashley.

"You got the getaway vehicle," she said, leaning over and kissing him in a way that said both "Thank you" and "I believe in you." She stood up and crossed the room to get another breakfast Twizzler. He watched her, amazed by her ability to evade capture and live under the radar. He was beginning to wonder, though, if it was the best thing for her, if she wouldn't feel better running towards this killer instead of away from him. Sure, it was safe, but it couldn't possibly be satisfying. There was so much closure she'd never get from hiding.

The Alexis he'd known hadn't been much for vengeance- then again, she'd never had anything to get revenge for. This woman was almost entirely different from the seventeen-year-old girl he'd known, though. He couldn't be certain that revenge wasn't exactly what she needed most.


	5. Locked Up

**A/N: A lot of people have been asking to know more about the past, the case, and what happened to everyone else, and I just wanted to let you all know that it might not be explained immediately, but over the course of the story pieces will be revealed, some through flashbacks or memories. Also, other characters will be entering the story, and that introduction will bring with it a lot of information about what happened seven years ago. Thanks for sticking with the story, enjoy!**

Alexis had stepped outside to make some calls to people she knew in Canada by her mother's "grave," so Ashley took the car and a handful of twenty-dollar-bills from Alexis' purse and went to Walmart. It wasn't as crowded as he'd expected, but then he remembered that it was a Sunday. This running-for-his-life thing had jumbled the days of the week in his mind.

He stalked up and down the aisles hurriedly, grabbing non-perishables at random. Cans of soup went into the cart, along with bags of Doritos, peanut butter, chocolate bars, two loaves of bread. He went down the toiletries aisle and tossed in a couple of the tiny bottles of shampoo and conditioner that he knew Alexis loved- or, at least, used to love. He also grabbed miniature tubes of toothpaste, two fold-up toothbrushes, deodorant, soap, and lotion. He even threw in a box of tampons, trying not to feel too self-conscious about it.

It was like preparing to descend into a tornado shelter, he reflected as he turned the shopping cart around the end of the aisle. They were going underground and they didn't know when they were going to come back up again.

Ashley maneuvered the cart around, headed for one of the lines to make his purchases when a familiar voice stopped him. "Ash?" He turned at the use of his name to see a tall man in a gray sweatshirt.

"Simon!" he said in recognition, clapping the other man on the back in a quick man-hug. "I haven't seen you since graduation." The two of them had gone to Stanford together. That Ashley would run into his old college classmate within days of reconnecting with his high school girlfriend- it was like the universe was forcing him down memory lane.

"What are you doing up here in Hastings?" asked Simon. "I thought you were in DC."

"I… I was," he stuttered, suddenly unsure of what to say. He couldn't say anything about Alexis, not even to someone he had no reason to distrust. "I'm not anymore."

"I can see that," laughed Simon.

"I'm here visiting family," lied Ashley. He tried to think up an imaginary uncle on the spot, but for whatever reason the only names he could think of were Muppets characters, and he didn't think an Uncle Gonzo was too convincing.

"You still with that redhead girl?" said Simon, noticing the box of Tampax in the shopping cart. Ashley shoved it down to the bottom of the cart, feeling his face redden. Just what he got for trying to be thoughtful.

"No, no," he said, and he wasn't completely sure that it wasn't a lie. Besides the closeness they'd had recently and the exchanged declarations of love, he wasn't certain where they stood when it came to a romantic relationship. With everything that was going on, his first priority was keeping her safe. He needed a reason to be buying tampons, though, so he thought quickly. "I'm running some errands for my Aunt…" Piggy. Rizzo. Swedish Chef. "Alta."

Simon laughed. "Good to see you again, Ashley."

"Yeah, you too." Ashley hurried over to the line. Every minute he spent away from Alexis made him feel more anxious.

* * *

><p>Ashley dumped everything he'd bought into the back of the car and hurried into the motel room. Alexis was lounging on the bed- drapes drawn, as always- watching a <em>Bones <em>rerun on the TV at the foot of the bed. "Hey," she greeted him when he walked in, turning off the television.

"Hey," he replied, a bit distracted by the decision he'd made in the car. "I think I need a new name." He'd been unnerved by the way Simon had connected him to Alexis and was afraid that the people chasing them might do the same thing.

Even as he said it, a dark red Volvo pulled into one of the parking spots outside their motel room. Alexis saw it through the glass doors and jumped off the bed, grabbing her purse. "Who's that?" asked Ashley, jerking a thumb towards the Volvo.

"Ben," she said simply, sticking an arm out the door to wave the man exiting the car over to their room. He wore a dark coat, and his long black hair covered his face as he bent his head, shuffling towards the door carrying a manila envelope under his left arm. Ashley thought that if he looked like that, he wouldn't need a new name. The man was practically invisible. Even the way he walked did something to hide him- stepping into shadows, moving quickly but not purposefully.

"Oh." Ashley still didn't understand what Ben was doing outside their motel room or why Alexis seemed to recognize him. Ben came up to the door but didn't enter, and Ashley was forcibly reminded of a vampire awaiting permission to pass a threshold. Ben handed Alexis the envelope and, after a peek inside, Alexis tossed him a wad of money.

"Thanks," she said. Ben just nodded and walked back to his car in that same blending-in gait, and then drove away.

Ashley blinked. "Should I be worried?"

Alexis waved him off and dumped the contents of the mysterious manila envelope out on the table. It looked to him like a fake driver's license, ID, passport, and birth certificate, along with some other assorted runaway goodies. "Great minds think alike," she said, handing him the fake ID card. It was his picture, but all the information was fake.

"Wang Chung?" he said, squinting at the name.

"It says Wayne," she corrected him. "And shh." She was still concerned about possible listening devices hidden in the room.

"Don't you think a name like that is kind of obviously fake?" he asked, stuffing everything back into the envelope and sliding it under a corner of the mattress. "'Course, I guess it beats John Smith."

"Hasn't it occurred to you that having a name that seems so obviously fake makes it look like it's real because we appear too smart to use such a bad fake name?" she pointed out. He frowned, working it out for a moment, and then nodded.

"I suppose," he conceded. "Is that why you did it?"

"Nope," she said, reaching for a Twizzler from the kitchen cabinet.


	6. Are We There Yet

That night while Alexis and Ashley were lying in bed, inches from drifting off, a thump somewhere off in the distance jerked Alexis awake. "Ash," she whispered, poking him in the back. "Did you hear something?"

"It's a motel," he whispered back, his voice muffled from his mouth being pressed against the pillow. "It's probably just people… you know." She rolled her eyes and sat up, keeping a hand on the comforter so she could peel it back and run if the need came.

"I've been at this for seven years," she said, rolling him over. "When I say 'Did you hear something?', I know what I'm talking about." The urge to scram was stronger than if it had been spelled out by a group of Roald Dahl's Vermicious Knids. "Time to go."

"I'll get the Twizzlers."

Ashley and Alexis packed up their things quickly. He grabbed the manila envelope from under the mattress and packed the contents of the refrigerator into a plastic grocery bag while she put on her Crocs and made sure everything was in her purse. At some point one of them thought to look at the clock- just past midnight. They'd been there barely twenty-four hours and someone had tracked them down. At least, they had if Alexis' instincts were right, and he was inclined to trust those.

Minutes later, the two of them climbed back into the Ford Focus without bothering to check out. Alexis tossed the soiled wedding dress into the backseat and remembered to shut the car door quietly. Ashley handed her the bag of food and the manila envelope, then backed out of the motel parking lot and drove away as fast as he could.

They would have been running away on an impulse- and impulse he trusted, but still an impulse- if they hadn't heard the rapid gunfire coming from the motel as they turned back onto the highway. Ashley's knuckles were white where he clutched the steering wheel. His stomach turned uncomfortably. "You okay there Wayne?" she asked, reaching over and touching his arm. He nodded, his throat dry.

"Yeah," he said, keeping his eyes on the road. He kept thinking of the cheery old woman who'd given them the room. "Yeah, I'm fine."

The sat in companionable silence for most of the drive up to Winnipeg, only speaking when he had to ask her for his fake passport. As they crossed the border, he turned to her and said, "They found us so quickly."

"I know," she sighed, fiddling with her college ring. "But I told you a motel wouldn't be safe for long."

"It could have been your friend Ben," he said.

"I don't have friends," she said quickly, like it was a line she'd rehearsed and repeated several times. "You're probably right."

As they neared the city, Alexis fed him directions to the safe house she'd called that morning. She seemed to have a lot of connections, he was beginning to realize. Acquaintances, if she wouldn't call them friends. And yet, for some reason that only made her seem lonelier. He pulled up to a large white house with dark shingles- it was still too early in the morning to make out much color. He started to pull into the driveway, but Alexis' hand landed on top of his and he felt her stiffen.

"What?" said Ashley. She was scanning the porch of the big house, her expression going from apprehensive to worried to panicked.

"Ash, drive away," she said, trying to sound as calm as possible. She wasn't doing very well- he could hear her beginning to hyperventilate. He didn't question her, he just pulled away and speeded off into the distance, heading back to the highway. He didn't say anything until he thought she'd calmed down.

"What was that about?" he asked.

"I can't be sure," she replied from the passenger's seat. "A fire, sniper, ninja assassin. Whatever it was, there was no quilt hung over the porch, which means that safe house wasn't safe."

"Oh," he exhaled. "You know, it's kind of like the Underground Railroad, except with snipers and Canada isn't safe." He was trying to make her laugh, but it didn't work very well.

He hadn't been much paying attention to where they were going, but now he realized that they were going eastward. "Where to, now?" He was pricked with the uncomfortable feeling that the killer was closing in on them- chasing them down in Minnesota, and then cutting them off in Canada.

"Um," she said, and he was surprised to see that she was uncertain. She'd seemed so together and on track before. Evidently the killer's closeness was damaging her calm. "I don't feel safe going back to the States, there are supposed to be some safe lodges near Niagara Falls."

Supposed to be. He recognized how difficult seeing a safe house leave her must have been. It was one of the few solid things in her world and now it was gone. Alexis was strong, strong enough to survive after so many things had been ripped away from her, but everyone needed points of solidity. That safe house had been one of them, and it had fallen through. Ashley reached over and patted her leg, trying to convey that he was there for her, he was prepared to be a point of solidity for her.

She smiled at him and reclined the seat back, shifting into a more comfortable position before falling asleep.


	7. Mountain And The Sea

Alexis awoke to the sound of running water. At first, she thought she was back in the New York City loft, asleep on the couch and hearing her dad taking a shower. She shifted and the illusion was shattered when she realized she was sitting in a car, not lying on a couch, and reality came rushing back to her much like the rushing water of Niagara Falls outside the car.

She sat up and blinked a few times, trying to clear the fog of sleep and also ward off impending tears. Occasionally, when she was very tired and very emotional, she reverted back to believing that she was back home, that none of this had really happened, and everything was fine. She hated it because she knew it would go away.

"Ash," she murmured sleepily, looking out the window. It appeared they were parked in the tourists lot beside the falls. The car wasn't running. "Ash," she said again, more urgently, turning to the driver's seat. He'd been leaning back against the seat, hands behind his head, taking in the view.

"Yeah?" he said, turning to face her. Alexis' hands fluttered for the keys, beginning to panic.

"How long have we been here?" she demanded, eyes darting back and forth between him and the pedestrians outside, half of her searching for someone alone, someone out of place, and the other half focused on speaking to Ashley.

"Uh… maybe half an hour?" he guessed, shrugging. "It's just I've never been to the Falls, and you were asleep-"

"Drive!" she said, tossing him the keys she'd located in the cup holder. He took them and stared at her, like he wasn't quite sure what to do with the car key. "Have you even been paying attention the past couple of days?" she accused him in response to his questioning look. "We can't just hang out in a parking lot, in a public space like this, it-" He'd been preparing to ask her "why" once she finished with her rant, but in the end he didn't need to. A bullet sliced through Alexis' window, embedding itself in Ashley's seat right where his head had been seconds before.

He didn't need any more convincing, he jammed the key in the ignition and hightailed it out of there. There was more gunfire behind them as they left the parking lot, but luckily none of it ruptured their tires. The shooter (shooters?) was aiming for the rear window, still trying to strike one of them. A couple bullets tore up the backseat, shattering the rear window.

"Wonder how we're going to explain this to the rental service," muttered Ashley as they turned on to the highway. Alexis, who had been gripping the sides of her seat since the first shot, relaxed and told him to buckle his seatbelt.

There was no point in going to any of her safe lodges- obviously Ashley and Alexis were being followed. What they needed was to escape, not to hide. Besides, they weren't the only people these shooters were after. They couldn't risk exposing another safe house and ruining it for other runaways. Without thinking or asking Alexis, Ashley instinctively began driving towards New York City.

Alexis, a bit frazzled from the shoot-out at Niagara Falls but beginning to calm again, put herself in charge of finding radio stations and adjusting them as the car passed through different ranges. There were a couple that played French songs Alexis pretended to understand, and then some with songs they recognized once they crossed the border. As they neared the city, she found Taylor Swift's "Mine" playing on one station and smiled, remembering the first time she'd kissed Ashley, when they'd decided that this was "their song." It seemed like a million years ago.

"You were in college working part-time waitin' tables," Ashley sang along and smiled, recognizing the song. He reached over and squeezed her hand, glad to hear something familiar. It was like a time capsule, and he was suddenly overwhelmed with nostalgia and longing for a simpler time. "Left a small town, never looked back."

"I was a flight risk," started Alexis, "with a fear of fallin', wonderin' why we bother with love if it never lasts." Taylor sang them into the city, where Alexis paused in her singing along to call out unnecessary directions to her old apartment. Ashley shot her a quizzical glance. "Look, it's the last place they'd expect we'd actually be dumb enough to go."

"I feel like that's your argument a lot," he countered.

"They've probably got a tail on us anyway, it doesn't really matter where we go," she told him. "And I'm sick of driving. And if I'm scheduled for a bullet in the brainpan tomorrow morning, I think I'd like my last memories to be of a place I love." Those were a lot of reasons, morbid as some of them might be, and it wasn't like he felt like arguing with her. Ashley followed her directions and drove to the loft.

The street outside seemed to have changed a lot in the past seven years, and Alexis encountered an out-of-place wave of happiness as she remembered how constantly evolving the city was. She missed it. "Last I heard, some fans were in the process of turning the place into a 'Rick Castle museum,'" she let Ashley know on the elevator ride up. "So I think a lot of our old stuff is in there, but I don't think there should be people." He nodded, keeping a firm grip on her hand in case they had to run. He'd left the bullet hole-riddled car in a parking garage a block away, but he was starting to doubt they'd ever be back in it. "You know, I'm pretty sure that gun Dad almost shot you with first time he met you is still up there," said Alexis with a smile. "You could use a weapon."

"Yeah," he laughed, remembering meeting Mr. Castle and coming face-to-face with the barrel of an old-fashioned gun. "I've never shot a gun before."

"You're a fast learner," she said. Her hopeful sentence was punctuated at the end with a ding from the elevator as they reached the floor of the loft. Alexis pulled the house key she still kept out of her purse and crossed the hall to the door of her old apartment.

"Hang on," whispered Ashley, putting a hand out in front of her to stop her from going through the door. She heard it, too- someone was moving around inside. From experience she knew that it was best to expect the worst, so she pulled out her Glock 17. "We're still going in there?"

"Yup." She slid her key into the keyhole and turned it with her left hand, all the while holding up the gun with her right. "Because I want answer." She dropped the key back into her purse and took the gun in both hands, holding it out in an isosceles triangle like she'd learned. She edged the door open, then stepped around the edge, gun out in front of her.

There, right before her face, a Glock 19 was pointed straight at her. At the other end of it stood NYPD Homicide Detective Kevin Ryan.


	8. Men of Snow

"Detective Ryan?" gasped Alexis, too shocked to do anything but say his name, to ascertain that it was really him. Granted, they'd only seen each other occasionally at Castle's parties or when she stopped by the precinct, and all that had been over seven years ago, but she was fairly sure that it was really him. She felt like she was staring at a ghost, and she didn't lower her gun.

"Alexis?" said Ryan, sounding just as surprised. Evidently they were both one of the last things the other had expected on the other side of that door.

"You blew up," sputtered Alexis, too stunned for tact or eloquence. "It was in the news, your apartment was in ruins, I remember!"

"Yeah, found that bomb a couple hours before it was set to go off and we got the hell out of there," he admitted. Ashley leaned around the corner of the door to see what was going on, but his peek really did nothing to help him understand.

"They found your bodies," pressed Alexis, confused. "Yours and your fiancée's."

"Two bodies straight from the 12th precinct morgue, charred beyond recognition," he said. He didn't sound proud- there was a bitterness in his tone. At the same time they both seemed to remember that they were aiming guns at each other. "Count of three?" he said, nodding to the guns. She nodded. "One, two…" On "three", he returned his Glock 19 to his hip and she slipped her gun back into her purse, zipping it shut.

"Come on in, Ash," said Alexis without looking away from Ryan. Ashley, even more confused than she was, stepped in behind her and closed the door behind him. From what little information he'd managed to glean from hovering outside the apartment, this man was someone Alexis knew, and apparently trusted.

"It's okay, Jenny," called Ryan over his shoulder. "It's Castle's daughter." A blonde woman emerged from Alexis' father's old bedroom, where she must have been hiding. Alexis realized that the realization and following panic and preparation she'd gone through on the other side of the door after hearing Ryan moving around in here must have been mirrored within the apartment as a reaction to the sound of her and Ashley.

"Hi," said Jenny to Ashley and Alexis. Even in desperate, bamboozling moments like these she remained cordial and slightly cheery.

"We really shouldn't talk here," said Ryan, glancing around the room as if ninjas were about to spring out from every corner. "I know a safe place, though, if you two want to stick with us." As soon as she said it, Alexis knew that she did want to stay together. They were all in the same boat- chased by snipers and shooters and bombers, everyone they'd known being obliterated around them. The only difference was, Ryan and Jenny had been smart enough to cover up the fact that they were alive.

"We were kind of hoping to get my dad's antique revolver," said Alexis, racking her brains to remember where it would be- probably on the bookshelf next to his authentic catalyzer.

"Here," said Ryan, holding out the antique gun to her. He'd pulled it out of a bag hung over his shoulder. She kind of hated the idea of people scavenging her old home, but brushed away her concerns. Like she'd thought earlier, it was the same boat- survival. You did anything to stay alive.

"Follow us," instructed Ryan, taking Jenny by the arm as they stepped out of the door to lead Ashley and Alexis. "Keep your head down, stick to the shadows, don't make a spectacle of yourself in any way."

"Detective, with all due respect, I've been at this for seven years and I'm still more or less intact," said Alexis. She sounded a bit arrogant, but she felt that she deserved it. She'd made it this far, why shouldn't that count for something?

"What about him?" asked Ryan, nodding towards Ashley.

"Oh, he doesn't know anything," shrugged Alexis with a laugh.

"Hey," Ashley mock-protested while Alexis shut and locked the door behind them. She handed him the revolver.

"Just don't wave it around or anything," she said. He took the old gun, and the two of them wound their way down to the streets with Ryan and Jenny.

* * *

><p>As they wove their way through the city, Alexis thought to check her phone for the time, realizing that she hadn't looked at a clock since Niagara Falls. It was two forty-five, and until she knew how late in the day it was and how long she'd gone without eating anything she hadn't felt hungry. She did now. "Detective?" she said, catching up to Ryan. He inclined his head towards her but didn't face her, like he didn't want anyone to think they were together. He had the right idea, she thought, two groups of two attracted less attention than one group of four. "It's just, I'm starving, would it be safe to-"<p>

"It's okay," he assured her, "there's food where we're going." She nodded, backing up to walk with Ashley again. Her stomach rumbled, and she hoped they'd get to the safe place soon.

However, when they reached the "safe place," Alexis began to seriously doubt how safe and off-the-map it could be. It was the Old Haunt where Ryan told them to stop, her dad's bar. "This is safe?" she whispered, following Ryan and Jenny inside.

"You'll see." The place had been redecorated, the walls covered with pictures of Castle and posters of his book covers. The whole place had been reformed into some kind of shrine to Alexis' father since his death. It was almost completely empty except for a bartender scrubbing the bar, who nodded to Ryan as they entered.

Ryan took them behind the bar and pulled up a trapdoor that led to the basement. Ashley looked surprised, but Alexis had already known about it- a lot of people did. Wherever Ryan was taking them, it was becoming more and more of an all-too-obvious hiding spot. Nevertheless, Ashley and Alexis walked into the basement behind Ryan and Jenny, closing the trapdoor behind them.

Alexis was about to say something about how they'd be safer at some hotel when Ryan said, with a hand on one of the bookcases, "Hey, Castle's daughter's friend, could you give me a hand with this?"

"Ashley," said Ashley, taking the other end of the bookshelf. The two of them pushed and pulled it all the way to the left.

A dark tunnel was cut into the wall, leading far, far back through the ground. "_This_," said Ryan, "is safe."


	9. Turn to Stone

**A/N: You can follow my brand-new Twitter account for updates on my writing and also for the random nonsense that bounces around in my brain. http: / / twitter . com / # ! / Duck_Life22 (without spaces)**

Ashley helped Ryan put the bookshelf back into its original position behind them, and then the four runaways began trekking down the dark tunnel, following the beam of Detective Ryan's flashlight. "There's some old subway tunnels leading out of here," said Jenny as they picked their way through the rat skeletons and assorted debris on the ground. "Good way to get around the city."

Ashley had been using a hand braced on the wall to keep from falling or bumping into something or someone, until he came across something lumpy, wet, and slimy attached to it. He jerked his hand back from the wall and retracted it to his side, deciding to keep his focus on Ryan's light to lead him.

"Everyone who knows about this place," said Ryan, "except for us, and now you, is dead." The epitome of safety, one might think, but his statement had two separate possible meanings- it was a good thing, that nobody knew about the tunnel, and it was a bad thing that people who knew about it tended to end up dead.

They made their way down the passageway until they came to a wide room- more of a cavern, really- with electric lanterns mounted in four corners. Jenny lit the lights while Ashley and Alexis surveyed the room in awe. Huge shelves stocked with food were pressed up against the walls, two air mattresses were pressed up against each other in one corner. Murals and patterns were painted along the walls, presumably by Jenny in an attempt to make the dungeon-esque chamber more friendly. A whiteboard hung on one wall covered with information about the murders of Kate Beckett, Rick Castle, and too many others.

"And you're really the _only _people that know where this is?" said Ashley, turning to the detective, who was pulling out lunch trappings.

"Yeah," said Ryan, taking a carton of milk out of an icebox in the corner. "Way I hear it, Castle didn't give a thing, not even the location of his favorite hideout." Jenny shot a glance at him, but it was too late, the words were out. Alexis felt herself stumble and grabbed at the wall to stop herself from falling.

"Wh-what?" she stuttered, playing what he'd said over again in her mind as she began to derive some sense of it.

"Sorry," muttered Ryan, eyes darting away from her as he busied himself with the sandwiches.

"My dad was tortured?" she said. Ashley let out an inaudible gasp- he hadn't yet reached this conclusion. The room was spinning, and Alexis twisted at the ends of her hair as if to stop it. She'd had to deal with the loss of her father, and that had been more than enough trauma, but now, finding out about this…

"They never broke him," said Ryan, like it would help. "He went out spirit intact." Stuffy cavern air rushed in and out of Alexis as she tried to take in both oxygen and the situation.

"How?" she said finally.

"No," said Jenny abruptly, surprising the other three with her firm tone. "Never ask that question." The truth was, Jenny wished there had been someone there to stop her from asking "how" after her fiancé had been tortured. She did what she could for the girl who'd lost both her parents. She didn't even know the extent of what had been done to Castle, she just knew that she didn't want to know and didn't want Alexis to know.

"Lunchtime," said Ryan, holding out a tray laden with four turkey and cheese sandwiches. His attempt to reduce the tension was incredibly see-through, but they were all very hungry and didn't mind. He set the tray in the middle of the floor and pulled up yoga mats for them to sit on.

"This is really good," said Ashley around a mouthful of turkey, more content now that they were off the subject of torture. Alexis nodded in agreement, but she was still torn up about the news.

"Alright," she said as they neared the last bites of their sandwiches, "if I can't ask how, I at least want to know what. What happened after I left? Who else is gone?" She'd kept up with the news after running away, but it was hard to keep an eye on everything and keep on the run the whole time.

Ryan gulped his milk, caught between his own desire to not discuss painful events of the past and the fact that Alexis deserved to know. "You went into hiding after Martha Rodgers' death, right?" he said, knowing he was right. She nodded. Martha's had been the fourth murder after Captain Montgomery's funeral. Before she died, there had been the double-shooting of Beckett and her boyfriend Josh in the hospital, and also Castle's abduction, inquisition, and eventual death. "They went for her best friend next," said Ryan, trying to think in facts and news stories and not dipping into actual memories. "Medical Examiner. Lanie. She was home, asleep, and somehow the shooter got through the patrol, up to her apartment." An unexpected shudder ripped through him, and Jenny took one of his hands. She knew the next part of the story and hated that he had to tell it.

"My partner," said Ryan, "he'd been dating Lanie. He was with her that night… they said he must've been standing in front of her when…" He didn't finish the sentence, and he didn't need to. "Anyway," he said, clearing his throat, "I knew I was next. I got paranoid, careful- that's how you survive, you know. Always kept my gun on me, never let Jenny out of my sight." He put an arm around Jenny, as if to accentuate his point. "I found the bomb in the venting system- like I said, paranoid incessant checking. My first thought was to get rid of it, but then I realized: this could be our chance at getting off the grid. I went back to the precinct and talked to the other ME, Perlmutter- shot walking home that night- and he gave me the bodies."

Alexis hadn't realized until now that she was clutching Ashley's arm so hard that her knuckles were white. She relaxed her grip and saw reddish crescent marks where her fingernails had dug into him. Apparently he hadn't even noticed, as caught up in the story as she was. "Thirty-seven," said Ryan. "Thirty-seven people including the Captain have died because of this man. Maybe more, it's hard to tell, he covers his tracks. Hires people to kill other people in the region and then shoot the detective assigned to the case. And then those people always get shanked in prison." He laughed- bitterly, without joy. "Some people say the Twelfth Precinct is cursed."

It wasn't the 12th, though, and Alexis knew it. It was Kate Beckett and anyone who had known her. A tiny apocalypse had exploded around her and endangered everyone she'd ever come in contact with. And how could you stop an apocalypse?


	10. The Chain

The underground chamber that Alexis, Ashley, Ryan, and Jenny were currently housed in must have been somehow entangled with a plumbing system, because it was covered in moist and mildewed spaces. Drops of water clinging to the ceiling reflected the dim light from the lone lantern that Ryan had left on before they'd all gone to bed, and it gave Alexis the impression that she was staring up at a dark sky sprinkled with glimmering stars. It was nice, even if it were just an illusion.

The fake stars did nothing to help her sleep, though. Ryan had offered her and Ashley one of the air mattresses, so she at least wasn't trying to fall asleep against the cold stony ground. She still had trouble. Ashley had planned to sleep on the ground, but she'd insisted he sleep up on the bed with her, and every time he so much as twitched the mattress jostled and swayed from side to side. She was inches from the ground and she felt seasick.

And then there were all the things that Ryan had told her earlier about her father, about Beckett. His morbid story was spinning around inside her head like those balls in the bingo number caller thingy that you turn…

God, she really did need sleep, but it wouldn't come. Giving up, at least for the moment, Alexis got up, being as careful as possible not to shake the bed. She stretched her arms behind her, hearing her shoulders crack from keeping still and straight on the bed. She was heading towards one of the vast shelves for a bottle of water when Ryan's silhouette caught her eye. He was sitting up at the edge of his bed, not sleeping, and he turned to her when he heard her move.

"Sorry," said Alexis quickly, hoping she hadn't woken him. "I was just thirsty-"

"'S okay, I was up already," said Ryan. "Seems like every night I'm getting more and more nocturnal." He frowned, like he was thinking of something. "Well, not nocturnal, insomniac, since I don't sleep in the daytime either." She nodded, understanding. She and Ashley had been driving all night, and she always felt unsafe falling asleep when there was no one there to keep watch. For a long time, she'd slept in forty-minute naps, repeatedly setting an alarm to ascertain that she woke up several times during the night in case someone broke in or she had to make a quick getaway.

"I'm sorry about your partner," she said, wondering if that's what he'd been thinking about. She'd noticed how broken up he'd been telling the story earlier, but no one had addressed it.

"It's alright," he said with one of those "I'm fine" head bobbles. "I'm sorry about your dad. And your mom, and-" He stopped, noticing Alexis' expression, and decided to stop listing the people she'd lost.

"Is it going to be like this forever?" she said suddenly, her voice hoarse with distress. She bunched her dark hair up in her hands. It was greasy- she hadn't showered since Chicago. "Always running, or hiding?" To herself she'd always held on to the hope that eventually things would calm down, that she'd be able to live peacefully again, but here was a man in her same situation who probably had a more accurate idea of how things would play out.

"No," said Detective Ryan, "It's not going to be like this forever." He pointed to the whiteboard against the wall that was coated with pictures of people related to the case. "We're gonna catch this jackhole."

* * *

><p>Shortly after their conversation, Ryan sent Alexis back to bed and tried to do the same. He woke up a few hours later when Jenny did and saw Alexis standing in front of the murder board, hand on her chin, contemplating it. He watched her with a sad smile while Jenny began preparing breakfast. "What?" said Alexis, noticing his gaze on her.<p>

"Nothing," said Ryan. "You reminded me of someone is all."

Once everyone had taken their cereal and coffee and were wide awake, Ryan gathered them all in the middle of the floor. It reminded him of the team meetings they used to have at the precinct, only on a much smaller scale, with much higher stakes. "People have been trying to solve Johanna Beckett's murder for almost two decades," he started off. "And so far, whoever hired Dick Coonan to kill her has remained untouchable." Alexis felt a bit irritated- they knew all this already. "But," said Ryan, pulling a thick manila envelope out from the bag of things he'd taken from the Castle residence, "we just found this. It's from the Captain, he must've sent it to Castle the day he died, and Castle didn't get it until later, and then didn't have time to look through it all before… well…" Trailing off seemed to be the equivalent of the idiom "kicked the bucket".

"Where'd you find this?" asked Alexis, stunned. She'd looked through her dad's things before she ran away, but this envelope she'd never encountered before.

"Folded up inside of his _Firefly_ DVD case," said Ryan. Alexis smiled a little.

"So we'd have to be trying to find Serenity," she murmured to herself, experiencing a pang for her father.

"Anyway," said Ryan, tapping the envelope for emphasis, "whatever's in here was enough to kill thirty-seven people for." Alexis opened her mouth reflexively to tell him not to end a sentence with a preposition, but shut it again. It was neither the time nor the place. Ryan ripped open the top of the envelope and dumped its contents out on the floor, directly in the middle of the circle the four of them had formed and began sifting through it.

Police reports, before they had been altered and erased. Witness statements. Pictures- a black car nosing into an alley, two men dragging a gangly figure into a warehouse. There was a transcript of a telephone call between Dick Coonan and another person, a person who, based on the phone call, was employing Dick for his assassination skills.

It was a name that every one of them recognized.


	11. Overboard

In red Expo marker, Ryan wrote the name "Senator Benjamin Dobson" on top of the murder board, above all the names and pictures of the people for whose death he had been responsible. The marker squeaked harshly as Ryan finished up the last "n", like he was pressing into the board as he wrote. "This is it," said Ryan, turning around to face Jenny, Ashley, and Alexis. "This is our man."

"Then arrest him," said Ashley, always ready to play Captain Obvious.

"I'm not a cop," said Ryan, a fact of which Alexis hadn't completely been aware of until this moment. Now it seemed like she should have realized it earlier. "I'm dead, remember?" Alexis thought about asking how they were able to afford all the food, but decided not to ask.

"Can't you anonymously send this evidence to the police?" said Alexis, nodding to the refilled and resealed manila envelope she was guarding against her chest. She wanted Dobson brought to justice as soon as possible, and it seemed like now that they had the evidence it was inevitable and easy.

"You're not getting it," sighed Ryan. He moved a clump of victims' pictures across the whiteboard, freeing up an area, and turned to draw on it with the dry-erase marker. He sketched a stick figure with horns up at the top, then beneath that another stickman, and beneath that a group of stickmen. Beside the first figure he labeled "Dobson", the second "Mayor", and above the group of stickmen "Police." "The senator," explained Ryan, pointing to the horned stickman, "controls the police. If evidence that would convict him gets to the cops, it will disappear."

"What exactly does this mean?" said Jenny. She knew him well enough to know that he had a point he was getting to, a point he wasn't at all happy about.

"It means," said Ryan, "that there's not a legal thing we can do about this." He left the whiteboard and started making his way over to his and Jenny's air mattress.

"What, so we just sit here planning our funerals, waiting to get picked off?" demanded Alexis, rotating to continue facing him as he walked around her. There was no chance in Hell she could just sit there knowing who killed her father and not do anything about it.

"No," said Ryan. He sat down at the end of the mattress and began loading his gun. "We're going at him rebel-style."

* * *

><p>For the rest of the day and the day after that, the team planned and plotted, the whiteboard struck and all the information replaced with everything they had on Dobson. Jenny was assigned to media review- somehow they'd obtained a laptop and WiFi down in their homey dungeon, and she was going through every item of news involving Senator Dobson, as well as monitoring the recent news coming out.<p>

Alexis and Ryan were compiling what they knew about the people that had come after them and what kind of attacks to expect. While they sketched out plans on the whiteboard and discussed how to find Dobson's address and its floor plan, Ashley stood against the backdrop, feeling out of place. Everyone else had been at this for nearly a decade, and he was brand new. He wasn't accustomed to running away, to hiding a paper trail, to wiping his fingerprints clean and looking away from security cameras. He was just an economics professor with an antique revolver.

"Hey," said Jenny, noticing how out-of-place he felt. "A couple of years ago there were rumors going around that Dobson was having an affair, and paparazzi were following him more closely. Might be some footage of his house, you want to look through this TMZ video?"

"Sure," he said, taking her seat in front of the computer while she went to get a bottle of water and watch Alexis and Ryan speculate.

"Remember," Ryan was saying, "he's got New York under his power. There's no telling what kind of force he could throw at us. I mean, he could be watching us right now. We could blow up in three, two…" They stood in silence for a moment, waiting, but nothing happened. "I was kidding," he said. "But it could be that fast. One second, we're standing here talking about how to go after Benjamin Dobson, the next, _kaboom_!" He spread his palms wide as if to illustrate the imaginary explosion.

"We get it," said Jenny. "Mortal danger, dead at any second. How do we get this guy?"

"Well," he said, "I'm thinking we find out where he lives and go in shooting until we get to him."

"We'll call that Plan B," said Alexis. "I was kind of thinking stealth would be a better way to avoid dying before we reach Dobson." He nodded, retracting his almost-suicidal idea.

"Hey, guys," called Ashley from across the room. He had the video he was watching paused on a screenshot of a white mansion at nighttime. "I found him."


	12. Glass

After the few days they thought they could afford of police training taught by Ryan, Ashley and Alexis were ready to go with Ryan and Jenny to take down Benjamin Dobson. They'd learned some basic moves about shooting without exposing yourself, and some basic combat. It was nothing on what Dobson's men were trained for, but it was their last and only resort.

The ragtag team of vigilantes spilled out onto the street outside the Old Haunt, keeping their heads low and sticking to the shadows like they had before. Ryan was armed with his gun, Jenny with his back-up, Alexis with her Glock 17 and Ashley with the antique revolver. They'd left all the evidence convicting Benjamin Dobson in the basement of the bar with a letter attached to it, informing the current owner- a Castle fan who'd bought it at an auction- of what the envelope contained and exactly what that meant. They hoped that he would be able to bring justice in the all-too-likely event that they died in their attempt to stop Dobson.

"Just to clarify," murmured Ashley, leaning over to Alexis while they kept a safe distance away from Ryan and Jenny to stay inconspicuous, "are we consciously planning on going in to kill the senator?"

"No," said Alexis, her voice heavy with sarcasm. "We're letting him off with a warning. That's what the guns are for." She rolled her eyes at him, not caring that he hadn't been in this element as long as she had and was therefore much more naïve about all of this than she was.

"I just don't see why we have to kill him," he sighed. "Jail would work fine. He'd probably get the death penalty, and then we wouldn't have blood on our hands." There was that aversion still instilled within him, a hatred of taking another human life, no matter how vile or monstrous. With all the carnage Alexis had witnessed and experienced, she'd had that aversion drilled out of her. She knew which of them was better off.

"Ash," she said, turning her whole torso to face him as they walked, "this is the one man whose blood I wouldn't mind on my hands."

She kept walking but he just stood there, shocked by what she'd said, unable to move. That she'd actually accepted this, that she was able to say it out loud, the fact that the girl who had used to berate him for killing cockroaches had become this vengeance-driven woman- it all made him feel guiltier that he hadn't stuck around. It all made him feel even more in love with her.

Alexis looked at Ashley over her shoulder. "Are you coming, or what?"

* * *

><p>The plan was for them to head over to the parking garage where Ashley and Alexis had left their nearly-destroyed rental and drive it out to Dobson's house. The route they took included the twelfth precinct. None of the four had thought this would be any kind of issue, because none of them knew that less than an hour ago the twelfth precinct had exploded.<p>

They saw the police cars, ambulances, fire trucks, and pedestrians gathering around as soon as they turned the corner, but it wasn't until they walked all the way down the sidewalk and managed to squeeze through the crowd that they saw the full flagrant scene.

The place Detective Ryan had considered a second home for eight years, the place where he'd proposed to his fiancée, the place where he'd first met his best friends, people he'd eventually considered family- was in nearly unrecognizable ruins. Firefighters were at work attacking the flames that sprouted from the precinct, police were trying to keep the people from surging forward. Paramedics kept running in, but emerging without victims. He tried, unsuccessfully, not to picture the scorched skeletons of his former colleagues lying in the wreckage before him.

"Excuse me," said Jenny, shoving past a few people to tap a nearby officer on the shoulder, "what happened here?" Yes, she already knew the gist and was certain that Dobson was behind it, but she had to know what the police knew. Call it morbid curiosity, or maybe she just felt safer going into Dobson's house with the full knowledge of his latest attack.

"We're calling in officials to verify everything," said the man over his shoulder, not really looking at her. "As far as we can tell, it was a short-range bomb, not radioactive. No survivors yet." No sugarcoating- for that she was thankful. She was less thankful when he turned around and, unfortunately, recognized her. "Hey…" he said, waiting for it to dawn on him. She thought about running away but was frozen to the spot. Ryan was still staring in horror at the precinct, not paying her and the officer any attention. "You were in that explosion a couple years ago."

"No…" she trailed off unconvincingly. She tried to back away, but the officer grabbed her arm, hands nearing the cuffs on his belt. Until this moment, she hadn't really considered what the punishment was for stealing bodies from a morgue and using them to fake your own death. Jenny jerked her arm out of his grip and leaned up closer to his face so she could speak quietly. "Listen, Officer"- she glanced at the patch on the side of his shirt- "Booth, if you care about catching the person responsible for this explosion, and for thirty-seven other deaths , you'll let me just go on my way and carry on with what I'm doing."

"I can't let you do that," he said, reaching for her arm again. She hopped back, somewhat safe behind the caution tape that spanned between them.

"You can arrest me later," she promised, growing desperate, "but if you take me into custody now, he'll know. He'll know and I'll probably be dead before morning." Booth seemed uncertain, but she sensed that he believed her.

"He's a part of it all, isn't he?" he said quietly. "The guy behind all that Kate Beckett stuff, he's a part of this, the police of the government. It's something like that, right?" he guessed. She nodded. "Then you're free to go," said Officer Booth. "But I'm coming with you."

"What?" hissed Jenny. She hated to drag Kevin away when he so obviously needed a moment of silence in front of the wreckage of the twelfth precinct, but she was starting to feel that they really needed to leave.

"I had friends at the twelfth," said Booth. "If you're going after this guy, you must have some kind of inside information, some kind of game plan. I'm not asking for all of that, I just want to help. If there's anything I can do to help end this guy, I'll do it."

She deliberated for a moment, then asked, "Do you have a car?"

"Parked down the street," he said, jabbing a thumb behind his shoulder.

"You're in," said Jenny, turning and walking back towards Ryan. She could hear him following her.

**A/N: If there are any curious Bones fans reading, that was Swarley Booth, Seeley Booth's distant relative. **


	13. Soldier

**A/N: For those of you who don't know, Neve Campbell is the actress who played Sydney (a girl being chased down by a serial killer) in Scream, and an orphan in the show Party of Five. **

**Also, my other story Princess Cop is a finalist for a Castle Fan Award! If you enjoy my writing, please vote here: http : / / castlefans . org / fanfic - best – humour / 270 (without spaces)**

Ryan wouldn't stop giving Swarley Booth suspicious glances, and he insisted that he sit up front with him during the drive, delegating Jenny, Ashley, and Alexis to the backseat of Officer Booth's car. Despite Jenny's insistences that she had a "gut feeling" they could trust Booth and that "they couldn't afford to waste time mistrusting him", and that they "really, really needed a car", Ryan refused to just blindly go along with it. He didn't tell the officer anything about their destination, just gave him directions as they were necessary.

"Jeez, Kev, you might as well blindfold him," said Jenny with an exasperated sigh, folding her arms and slumping into the seat. She'd been huffy with him since they'd left the precinct because she was upset that he didn't seem to have any faith in people any more. Huffy, and guilty too, because she felt bad about arguing with him upon the heels of the demise of his precinct.

Booth reached for the radio and Ryan tensed up, hand nearing the gun on his side. Swarley laughed and turned up the volume on the radio. "You've got to chill," he said. "I swear, I'm on your side. You can trust me. I've got a cousin in the FBI, for cryin' out loud."

"Don't think that makes any difference," said Ryan. "I knew an FBI agent who went crooked, tried to blow up half of New York."

"Exception, not the rule."

"Turn left here."

Ashley squeezed Alexis's hand, more out of his own fear than to comfort her. He'd just seen a whole building full of people blown away into almost nothing, and they were running straight into the guy behind it. In a satisfying and fulfilling justice-y sort of way, he felt excited about tracking down Dobson. Mostly, though, he wanted to take Alexis and head across the city to his apartment, curl up on the couch with her and forget about this suicide mission.

"We're going to make it," Alexis whispered to him, noticing his tightened grip on her hand.

"What makes you so sure?" he said, pessimism clouding his thoughts. He didn't want to die. He didn't want her to die. _Of course_, he reminded himself, _eventually we were going to be killed. _This was true, he'd already accepted the inevitability. At least this way they had a chance of surviving, even if it was one in a million.

"I'm not sure, I just think so," she retorted. "Overwhelming overconfidence. It's the only way to make it out here." He nodded and kissed the top of her head, staring down at her recently dyed hair.

"You know, with the dark hair you kind of look like Neve Campbell."

"It's not the hair," she said. "It's the orphaned thing. Also, the fact that I'm being chased down by a serial killer."

"That, too."

o-o-o-o-o

Booth pulled up outside Senator Dobson's house after a little over an hour of driving. He'd been throwing out guesses as to the destination, each more ludicrous than the one before it. Even when they arrived in Benjamin Dobson's driveway, Officer Booth didn't realize whose house it was until Ryan told Jenny that if she must come in, stick with the men to the sides and stay away from Dobson.

"Senator Dobson?" said Booth. "_He's _the one behind all this?"

"Yeah," said Ryan. "Now, you stay out here and wait with the car. If we're not out in an hour-"

"No way," said Booth. "I'm going in there with you to take out Dobson. I _knew _I didn't like that guy." Ryan turned to look Swarley Booth directly in the face, and for once all traces of distrust were gone from his voice.

"It's highly likely that you could die in there," he said. "Know what you're getting into before you go in there."

"God knows how many people have already died because of this bastard," said Booth. "And I always wanted to go out with style." He got out of the car and slammed the car door.

* * *

><p>As soon as they reached the steps of the front porch, a men all in black hopped down from some unseen alcove and shot Ashley in the neck with some sort of dart. Ryan shot the man in the chest and continued on through the front door, the other four in his wake.<p>

There were more men inside, people with guns instead of dart guns. The sound of shooting drilled out everything else, even thought. A bullet hit Alexis's stomach but couldn't penetrate the vest. She fired, shooting almost blindly, and heard a thud. As she ran ahead, she wondered if she would ever know who she had killed.

Booth took a bullet to his unprotected arm but kept going, waving his gun around with his good arm and shooting anything that moved. He leapt in front of Ashley at one point, killing the man who'd been aiming at him in one shot. "You okay?"

They were being shot at from almost every angle and he had no idea if his friends were still alive. He had an antique revolver that nine times out of ten missed its mark. Ashley most definitely was not okay, but by the time he'd opened his mouth to say this, Booth had moved on, leaving him to fend for himself.

Anyone who had known Jenny Duffy-O'Malley prior to her fake death would not recognize her now. She moved like a machine, maneuvering across the floor in what was almost a strange sort of dance, injuring and killing the men surrounding them with near-perfect aim. Kevin had trained her well in the past few years, and it was obvious she'd taken everything he said to heart. She spun around the room, gun out, letting bullets hit her Kevlar and remaining unfazed.

Everything Kevin Ryan had in him was going into this showdown. His moves reflected his cop training, and as he ducked and blocked and aimed with calculated precision he relived his days as a detective, taking down criminals with Esposito. He remembered the night he'd shot the Triple Killer. He was putting ten times as much into this fight as he had that one- and it still wasn't enough.

The scene was chaotic, so Alexis was the only one watching when former NYPD Homicide Detective Kevin Ryan took a bullet to the head and crumpled to the floor.


	14. Breakable

They had less than a second to grieve. Jenny didn't even stop moving. She glanced at her fallen fiancé when she heard him thud onto the floor, and then started up again with the shooting. More armed men kept pouring into the room. If she had moved with poise and precision before, it was nothing compared to now. She spun around the room, a careful and deadly dance between comrades and enemies, until she became a blur of black and blonde.

She aimed to kill- no more of this kneecapping crap. As she moved to the other side of the room, a circle of destruction gathered around her as the people coming after her fell down one after the other. Alexis grabbed Ashley and hauled him across the room after Jenny, and Booth followed.

They didn't meet as much opposition as they progressed through the house. Evidently, Dobson had figured that most people would be stopped by the men at the front. Ashley knew the floor plan and where Benjamin Dobson was most likely to be, and Officer Booth was able to hear where the most activity in the house was.

"I love you," said Ashley, running up beside Alexis as they headed on through the house.

"We're not going to die." Booth passed them and ran down a narrow hallway, and she pulled Ashley into it to follow him.

"What makes you so sure?"

She glanced at his worried expression and almost smiled, deciding that in this defining moment she would quote what had been her father's favorite TV show. "Because we are so… very… pretty. We are just too pretty for God to let us die." She hooked her arm over his shoulder to shoot a man coming up behind them. "Come on."

* * *

><p>The big house was no labyrinth, and it didn't take them too long to find the senator's office. He was sitting in a spinning chair at the back of the large room, facing the door like he'd been expecting them. As soon as they rushed into the room, men leapt out from the corners and tackled Booth, Jenny, and Alexis, pulling them over to the sides of the room despite their attempts to get away.<p>

Ashley managed to evade capture, slipping away and stepping closer to Dobson. For a moment, no one moved, and the now-standing Dobson just stared down at Ashley. It was in this moment that Ashley finally seemed to register the dart sticking out of his neck. He picked it out, wincing, and tossed it across the room. He didn't see it, but it landed near Alexis's feet and she eyed it with a small gasp.

"Sorry about that," said Dobson, nodding to the dart, a sinister lilt to his voice. "Harry likes to stand at the door and say 'boo.'"

"He's dead," said Booth. One of the men holding him socked him in the jaw to shut him up.

"I assumed." Dobson shrugged. Harry must have been some kind of ally and Dobson shook away his death like it was a leaf that had landed on his shoulder. This, more than the countless people Dobson had killed, chilled Ashley and convinced him of how evil a man this was.

"You shot at me." Ashley held out his antique revolver and pointed it at Dobson, trying to keep his hands from shaking.

"No, no," Dobson corrected him, "my men shot at you. Legal differences, you understand." Ashley glared at him. "But see, there's no gun pointed at you now. I haven't attacked you. If you kill me, it isn't self-defense. It's murder." Ashley faltered, his finger tapping anxiously against the trigger of the gun.

"Ash, just shoot him!" yelled Alexis before a hand was slapped over her mouth, silencing her.

Ashley didn't need any more convincing. Time was running out, and he could die at any moment. _Alexis _could die. He aimed at Dobson's stomach and fired. The bullet missed its mark by a few feet, sinking into the plaster of the wall above Dobson. It was, however, enough to startle the senator, and he fell backward into Booth's waiting handcuffs.

While Ashley hadn't been watching, Booth had elbowed and kneed his way out of capture and sprinted around the room to Dobson. "Benjamin Dobson," said Booth, "you're under arrest for the murders of Johanna Beckett, Roy Montgomery, Kate Beckett, and fifty-four others. You have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law."

Once Dobson was cuffed, his hired men were somewhat less devoted to hanging onto Alexis and Jenny, and the two women were able to break free. As soon as she was out of the hold, Alexis ran to meet Ashley at the middle of the room. As he turned to hug her, she shoved some sort of needle into his shoulder. "Ow!" said Ashley. "What the hell are you doing?"

"I'm the hell saving your life." She pulled the needle out of his arm. "That dart was coated with poison."

"And you just carry around the antidote?" said Ashley, looking at the needle in her hand.

"I told you I had everything I needed in my purse." He felt like laughing. Instead, he pulled her into a tight embrace, glad that they had survived.

After one long moment where victory tinged the air, Booth called for backup to carry away Dobson, and also ambulances for the people they had injured. Ashley and Alexis, sticking tight together, turned to see Jenny standing by the door. It seemed as if Kevin's abrupt death was catching up with her now that everything had slowed down. She swayed in place, looking utterly lost. Kevin Ryan had not only been the love of her life, he'd been her only human contact in the past six years.

Alexis started to cry, grief and loss and pity for Jenny forcing out the tears that she didn't think existed anymore. And then Ryan stepped through the door, clutching a bloody ear with one hand and reaching for Jenny with the other. "D'I miss the fight?" he said, looking around the room. Jenny spun around, mouth popping open in disbelief.

"Kevin?" He raised his eyebrows, realizing that she'd thought he was dead.

"Yeah, it was just a graze-" She attacked him before he could finish his sentence, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him like she needed to prove to herself that he was really alive. Ashley put a hand on Alexis's shoulder, turning her away from what seemed like a personal moment. They stood in the middle of the room and watched as the man who had tortured and killed Richard Castle was read the Miranda Rights that no one thought he deserved.

When Ryan was being herded into the ambulance so the medics could staunch the bleeding in his ear, he turned to Alexis, patted her shoulder, and said, "Good work, Castle."


	15. Everybody

"One year ago today, Senator Benjamin Dobson was arrested for the murders of all the people whose names are blazoned on the monument behind me," said Kevin Ryan. He was standing in front of what had once been the 12th precinct. He neglected to mention that Benjamin Dobson had then died in prison, stabbed by Damian Westlake, thought Alexis as she elbowed her way past a gangly man with floppy hair in order to pull herself and Ashley into the front row of the crowd listening intently to Ryan's speech. "You see, almost twenty years ago there was a conspiracy to kidnap mobsters for money. Dobson found out, but instead of stopping it, he just asked for the money."

Ryan gulped and Jenny glanced worriedly at him from where she stood beside the podium. She'd seen him rehearsing this speech for a couple of weeks without a hitch, but she was sure that standing in front of what had once been the precinct would have some effect on him. "Dobson spent most of his career orchestrating the termination of anyone who had anything to do with the case against him, including Johanna Beckett and her daughter Kate Beckett- who was practically family to me."

He proceeded to read off the names of all fifty-seven casualties of what could only be described as Dobson's reign of terror. Alexis wanted to drown out the names, she wanted to cloud her mind and let them run together. She didn't want to hear the name of her father, her grandmother, thrown at her like more icy shards to poke at her heart. Not now, not today.

And yet, she knew that she owed all these people listening as their names were read. All those people who'd had families and lives, lives that (unfortunately for them) intersected somehow with Kate Beckett's, all they were now was dust and a name engraved in the marble behind Detective Ryan. The least she could do was give their names her full attention.

"Richard Castle, Martha Rodgers, Javier Esposito…" Alexis barely heard the wavering in Ryan's voice, she was trying to keep her tears from running down her cheeks. Ashley, noticing this, wrapped an arm around her and pulled her into his chest.

"You're so strong," he murmured into her now-red hair. It wasn't the "it's okay" or "I love you" she'd been expecting from him, something to calm her down. It was simply the truth, at least the way he perceived it. _You're so strong_.

* * *

><p>She was strong, strong enough to be able to live with Ashley in her father's loft and let the place honor his memory rather than remind her of his death. Alexis pulled her broccoli and cheese casserole out of the oven and set it on the stovetop, turning around to see the friends with whom she'd battled Dobson sitting around her living room.<p>

"Ash, will you get out the champagne?" she said.

"Yeah." Ashley hopped off the couch and walked into the kitchen, away from Ryan and Booth's conversation about proper gun cleaning. He met Alexis in the kitchen and pulled her in for a quick kiss. "You okay?" he whispered against her ear. It was a warranted question- the day had been full of remembrance of painful things, the deaths she'd had eight years to dull had been sharpened again, thrown at her. A day full of stress, and she was just happy to finally be home, in her fiancé's arms.

She smiled. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay."

Maybe it was a lie, but not for long. She _would be_ okay. She would marry Ashley and go back to college and live life the way she had always intended. After seven years of turmoil, her world was finally returning to normal. As Alexis joined Ashley, Ryan, Jenny, and Booth in the family room, she thought to herself that she could get used to normal.

**THE END**

**A/N: Thoughts? Complaints? Aren't you glad I didn't kill off Ryan? :D Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed this story, you keep me (mostly) sane. If you haven't voted for my story Princess Cop in the Castle Fan Awards yet, please do, it would mean a lot to me. **

**http : / / castlefans . org / fanfic - best – humour / 270 (without spaces)**

**Also, check out my newest story, coming soon: The Whole Sort of General Mish Mash. And Castle and Beckett are alive in this one! **


End file.
